Our new 64” long model can be completed as either the Royal Navy's HMS/M Graph ( Captured vessel) or any one of the German boats. Two type of Conning Towers are supplied, the one shown on the boat here is from the CIIc/42, the other is from the VIIC.

The German type VII "U boat" was a single hull ocean-going boat of medium displacement, she was fitted with external ballast tanks and main negative tank inside the pressure hull. With its various variants (VIIa, b, c, c-41, c-42 d & f) they formed the backbone of the German submarine fleet for over 10 years.

The design of the ‘Type VII’ was developed from the UB III boats of WWI and the Finnish ‘Vetehinen’ class built between 1926 and 1932. The design sought to build a boat with high strength, good sea-keeping, surface and underwater handling, good surface speed and large torpedo capacity. Construction had to be straightforward and maintenance was fairly simple, all this resulted in a boat 218ft long displacing just under 915 tons.

The submarine was easy to mass produce, stable, well armed and popular with its crews. The prototype ‘Type VII’ was built in 1935 at Deschimag AG Weser, Bremen, launched on 24/6/36 and numbered U27 (lost to Naval action in the North Sea in 1939). In the following 10 years 704 boats of this general design were built, thus making them the largest class of submarine ever built. Of the "Type VIIc" variant 661 boats were ordered (U69 on.).

Our model is of the ‘Type VIIc’, U-570 built by Krupp Germania, Kiel. Launched March 1941.
Whilst on patrol off Iceland on the 25th. August 1941 she was attacked and disabled by aircraft of RAF Coastal command, the aircraft then watched her in succession until a Royal Navy ship arrived on the scene and took her over, this after her crew had unsuccessfully tried to scuttle her. Crucially her ‘enigma’ code-making machine was captured, (the first of only a few) and this single act of possession of this machine probably saved millions of lives and shortened the duration of the war. After repairs she served in the Royal Navy under the name of HMS/M Graph. She was eventually lost on the 20th March 1944 on the west coast of Islay.

The ‘Type VII’ was also the class to sustained the most losses of WWII, of the 704 boats built, 437 were lost to Allied action a further 165 were scuttled by their crews to either avoid capture or at the end of the war.